Free standing mailboxes are very popular in rural areas. The mailbox is placed at the side of the road and the "mailman" drives along and inserts the mail into the mailbox. However, the person in the house, unless he or she sees the mailman, does not know whether or not the mail has arrived.
Mail box flags have been designed to indicate that the mail has been delivered. These mailbox flags sit in a horizontally extending position prior to the mail being inserted into the mailbox. After the mail has been delivered, the flag is moved to an upright position clearly indicating delivery of the mail.
The most widely used mailbox flag is one that must be manually moved by the mailman from the horizontal to the upright position. This is both time consuming and awkward for the mailman.
A number of different automatic flags have been patented. Some examples are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,471,364, issued Oct. 23, 1923, U.S. Pat. No. 2,852,185, issued Sept. 16, 1958, U.S. Pat. No. 1,627,617, issued May 10, 1927, U.S. Pat. No. 1,181,078, issued Apr. 25, 1916 and U.S. Pat. No. 1,527,685, issued Feb. 24, 1925. It would appear that none of the above patented flags have made it to the marketplace, more than likely because of their complicated designs and the amount of material required to make the flags which would add substantially to the overall cost of the mailbox. Substantially all of the earlier automatic flags use a relatively long flag portion which then necessitates the use of additional weights on the bottom of the flag to move it to an upright position.